Opinion: Israel's Right to Self-Defense

Columnist Bret Stephens on the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Photo: Associated Press

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... I ... I ... looking at video of the escalating conflict between Israel and a terrorist group Hamas in Gaza ... welcome to Opinion Journal Live by Mary Kissel ... Chile now to discuss the contours of this conflict is global view columnist Bret Stephens Brett ... welcome to the show ... um right you talked with producer Netanyahu regularly ... over the years ... um what ... do those conversations how those conversations and form ... your view of what's going on ... right now when you know it's interesting Mary um just about four years ago in January two thousand time ... I interviewed um ... Mr Netanyahu ... he was on the eve of returning to office ... on the day that the ceasefire the last ceasefire was announced between Israel ... and Hamas over the conflict in the Gaza Strip ... and ... at the very beginning of of two thousandnine ... my sense um you know are you satisfied with the ceasefire and he was unequivocal he said look ... any deal ... to me some awesome power ... that allows them to continue to supply themselves ... through their border ... with Egypt ... with more munitions more rockets ... is just going to lead to a repetition of the same thing ... and in fact those words were prophetic ... what's ... interesting also however ... is he also seems to be going for a ceasefire rather than some different kind of arrangement which as Hamas rule in in the strip okay ... let's talk about that ... what role does this changed environment Israel now sits in the middle of ... for example ... I know to Egypt sent the chief of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Gaza Strip this morning ... show his support ... the world is the changed environment play and how Mr Netanyahu was responding to the situation ... well ... um ... you ... know the way it should affect the Israelis is is they need to understand and less room for maneuver ... than they had before ... you know previously into thousandeight and nine when the Mubarak government seemed firmly entrenched in Egypt ... they could have a situation ... in which ... God so was this Hamas enclave Hamas on tripled because both the Egyptian government ... and the Israeli government ... um were firmly opposed to Hamas ... that's no longer the case ... right now when cyanide to the Egyptian Jews have some control over what was going on in Sinai ... there's less and less control there is more terrorist activity of coming across the border in income into Israel ... so ... that should be telling the Israeli government they cannot be afford ... to have Gaza to meet the remaining under Hamas is of Hamas is Darrel what I think he's really govern this trend to is very carefully calibrate its position towards the Morsi government the Muslim Brotherhood government ... in Egypt for fear ... of a definitive break between Israel and Egypt was Isaak peers coming one way or another is insisting that we are are not looking at some sort of ground war Iraq think you're seeing ... it's very hard to say you know and um I think you could look their feverish efforts to achieve a cease fire ... I think President Morsi of Egypt wants to show that he's the guy who holds the leash ... on um on Hamas he's working towards a ceasefire that the Tories are ... the Turks are I think the Obama administration ... of wants a cease fire ... on the other hand the rocket fire from Hamas is not living up to these release of talk about this with the thirty six hour window for this ... for the stand ... if that doesn't and ... they will be um they will be in ... in in ... of the hard pressed not to go in with ground forces ... that being said a ground invasion of Gaza doesn't mean going into cities in the can be done strategically in relatively bloodless when we got about a minute left but let's look at what President Obama said his first comments on the situation came yesterday ... and I quote there's no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders ... we are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself ... all parties that support code that is a great statement I think the president deserves credit for making that statement it's absolutely right ... the problem is that on the one hand you say Israel has the right to defend itself ... on the other hand the Americans along with the Europeans are cautioning Israel ... about ... taking ... another step they're urging a cease fire ... and so they're saying is not the right to defend itself but ... you know ... only ... too well um only up four point and I think what the Obama administration ... really ought to be saying is not only does is talk of a right to defend itself ... that is will not have peace alone assist terrorist group Hamas remains in power in the Gaza Strip OK were to leave it that global view columnist Bret Stephens some very unique insights there ... thank you so much for joining us